Lakeside Triathlon - a comeback story

Beware, it is very long.

A brief history. I did a half ironman 2 years ago this July just after starting to work full time after being a grad student for 3 years. I was able to keep up the working out for the frist 2 months of work until my race, but then took an extended recovery after the race - like a month. Justified since it was a LONG race. Then we bought a house. a month and a half of renovations ensued. By that time work had picked up big time. And by big I mean big. The rest of 2007 and all of 2008 passed in a blur of working. I would start training again, for a brief period of time, and then I would go on a job where I had 60 hours of work a week for a month and have to start all over again. This continued until February of this year. For those of you who know consulting lingo - my chargeability at the end of the year, including 3 weeks of vacation, two sick days, several days of training and equipment maintenance was 95%. I think I ended up working something like 200 hours of overtime in 200. I had a hard time learning how to train while working.

Enter March 2009. I desperately want to get back in shape. I'm at the gym working out and I notice a sign for a triathlon training group that is starting off. The sign says, beginners and others welcome, so I decided to sign up to get me motivated to train and try to keep me honest about it when work got in the way. We swam as a group two times a week (my strongest event - BY FAR). did one brick workout as a group and did group bikes and runs on the weekends. (I only managed to make it to one group bike ride and no group run). Biking has always been my weakness and the 20+ pounds I have gained since my Half ironman didn't help the situation any. I worked hard, and built my long run up to 8.5 miles, and I felt strong coming into race day. Not fast, but I knew I wouldn't have any trouble finishing the distances.

So race day...

We get to the site at 8 am and I rack my bike and pick up race kit and then find DH who totally wasn't waiting where I told him to. We get in line for the bathrooms (big line!) and was getting nervous that I wouldn't get a good warm-up in. Managed to get into my wetsuit with half an hour to spare and headed out for a swim warm-up. It was cold so not many people were swimming to warm-up. I trusted my wetsuit and was very glad of having done a great warm-up.

Swim - 750 m - 13:06 That was my second fasted tri swim ever and I suspect the fastest was a very short course. I think this one was accurate based on others times and how training went. I really wanted to the clock to say 12:XX but I really can't complain at all about that swim. out of 257 racers, I finished in 52nd place. pace of 1:45/100 m.

T1 - uneventful and not overly fast - I still need to work on my transitions, not horrible, but still - 1:56

Bike - 30 km - 1:05:47 - 27.4 km/hour. I flew through the first 6 km of the bike course. And then we turned east. Into the wind. For 12 km. Notsofun. I was sill managing to keep up a pretty decent pace for me, and even passed two cyclists on the bike course, and one was on a road bike. I also managed not to be passed by a fast guy on a mountain bike, which is very good for me. My overall pace ended up being the same as my half ironman, so I really can't complain about that. Much faster than I would have thought I would do just a few weeks ago! I was thinking then that 1:10 would be hard. amazing what adenaline, a better fitting bike and taper can do .

T2 - uneventful and faster - 1:12 - my feet are numb from the bike and my socks are soaked (by this time it was probably about 16C, so still rather chilly for biking, but fine for running.) My feet would stay numb from the balls forward until the finish line.

Run - 7.5 km - though I am positive that it was really 8 km (my HRM says 8, our car odometer says 8) - 46:44 - 6:14/km (or 5:50/km take your pick). Hills. Two monster hills. Not much else I can say really. By the end of the run I was just getting tired. I had a hard time finding my legs to pick up the pace. This is where I think a 5K or a 10K race before today this spring would have helped me. A slightly easier race than a 2+ hour triathlon would have helped me get my racing legs under me. At one of the water stops I asked for a glass of water because my gatorade tasted too sweet. I even asked the guy "This is water?" "yep". Gulp Gulp. So not water. I have had probablems with Hammer Gels before so I wanted to steer clear of the HEED they were serving on race day (which I had never tried before). I didn't end up having any problems with it (luckily!!!), but I am a little ticked at the volunteer. 400 m from the finish line there was a guy (who had passed me 500 metres before) shortly in front on me. Some ladies that I met on Wednesday this week were on the side of the road cheering and urged me on to pass the guy, so I put a little pep into my step and passed him (he was quite content to let me go) and finished in 2:08:47. Right where I had told my DH I would finish (between 2:05 and 2:10 - if the run was long, it would have been around 2:06).

I grab a bite to eat and then head over to cheer on some of my training partners finishing the bike of the give it a tri, and then went to find the race results. I finished 1st in the Athena (i.e., over 150 lbs) < 40 category. I was also the only one. Oh well, can't complain, I get a free race picture! looking at the results, if I had raced age group, I would have finished 7/12 in my age group. I can't find how I did compared to others in the age group in each event, they only have placings in each event overall.

So that is it! I have returned to training and working out. I am so glad that I had decided to sign up for this clinic, I think I finally have the training while working thing down. I had to be up and at it early several morning and had several 12 hour workdays and DH's grandparents are visiting right now for Iran so weekends have been busier than normal. I have learned to be flexible with my schedule and play around with it to make it work. I think it is a turning point for me, and I will be able to keep at it this time. Next up, two more tris this summer (late August - hopefully 10 pounds lighter) and one in september, and then a marathon in November!